SOURCE: Moore, Don D. “The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster and R. H. Horne.” Essays in Honor of Esmond Linworth Marilla, edited by Thomas Austin Kirby and William John Olive, pp. 166-173. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970.

In the following essay, Moore asserts that the theatrical success of Webster's The Duchess of Malfi should really be attributed to the significant adaptations made to it by Horne.

Until 1965 and a four-month run off-Broadway of Jack Landau's energetic staging of The White Devil, the two major plays of John Webster have had extremely limited success on professional stages for the past two centuries. Productions in London in 1945 and 1947 of The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil received high praise, but generally Webster in the study (or in the classroom) has always been preferable to Webster on the stage. From George Henry Lewes to Kenneth Tynan, the record...